One of the things I like most about this little space is how easy it’s always been to come here and tell you (or, at the very least, future me) about all the things that have been happening in the world of the two red bowls, even if most weeks it’s literally nothing but the same old, same old, plus a recipe for cake.

So it was really and truly weird earlier this year to try to continue writing here when we’d discovered a little something that I couldn’t quite share yet on the blog, but was all Bowl #2 and I could talk about. It translated, as maybe you were bored into noticing, into a solid month of talking about the weather in every post (after which B2 told me please not to write about the weather) or writing some things about foods that were delicious at first but always unappealing to me by the time I posted it on the blog.

But now I can finally share what you might have already guessed — we’re having a baby! And we are over the moon. I am sorry for the weather one-note that I have been for the last four months. The good and bad news is that now I will be a one-note about this wee boy in my belly who’s heading into the world in November and so far, making me look like I have constantly had way, way too much pizza.

I’m pretty sure you don’t really need a recipe to know how to make these little snacks, which are as simple as they are delicious and are nothing more than rice and lightly dressed salmon wrapped up snug in seaweed. But I’m also convinced that there can never be enough words said about those really easy but wonderful things that are magically more than the sum of their parts, like a ripped baguette with salted butter, or peanut butter on a banana, or ricotta and honey. Onigiri were the very first thing we ate in Japan and the very last, bought in jet-lagged abundance from a convenience store on our first night and then from a counter at the airport right before we left. Something about plain (not even seasoned!) rice and a salty filling, tucked inside snappy, just slightly briny seaweed, makes for the perfect on-the-go snack that’s comforting and homey-feeling, even when you can’t read any of the wrappers and pick your flavors based solely on the color-coded labels and you’re surprised by the fillings every time. (In retrospect, it would have been a good idea to look up this guide beforehand.)

Yep, it’s true. I went and made oatmeal out of bubble tea. (Or bubble tea out of oatmeal?) I have no idea how it happened. The idea landed in my lap when I was making, not any other kind of kooky oatmeal, but the simplest one I’ve had in years — on a particularly blustery day in this reluctant spring we’ve been having, I had a hankering for super simple, childhood-basics oatmeal, a hug in a bowl in protest of our chilly February-like April. So I made an oatmeal like my dad used to make on sleepy schoolday mornings, just milk and oats and plenty of sugar on the side, served with a reminder to eat it around the edges of the bowl first, because that’s where it’s coolest. Then, halfway through my creamy-sweet bowl, I suddenly thought of another comfort food (drink) I love, with milk and plenty of sugar — and boba, instead. And lo, here we are. Bubble tea oatmeal! Oatmeal bubble tea!

A few months ago, a couple of friends introduced us to a soba restaurant in Midtown called Soba Totto, and introduced me to a world of wonders. Soba noodles are fast working their way up my list of favorite noodles, with their resilient bite and nutty flavor, and they were never better than in the soups we tried there. I had a duck breast and yuzu soba noodle soup that was all kinds of crisp, smoky and tart in all the right ways, but what really stole my heart was B2’s choice (this happens all the time, because I am that kind of date) — something they called “sukiyaki soba,” soba noodles served in a dark, lip-smacking broth crowded with thinly-sliced pork belly and wiggly tofu, piled high with bias-cut scallions, and, most wonderfully, finished off with a barely-poached egg that melted into the broth to make it extra creamy, rich, and just the slightest bit sweet.

We’re back! How was the rest of your February? I won’t bore you with most of the details of mine, which was mostly a mish-mash of work and other not-super-fun things, but B2 and I did top off our month with a couple of bright and beautiful days (or, more accurately, just a smidge over 24 hours) in sunny LA this past weekend, which I think is much more worth talking about! I had my first In-N-Out ever (followed by an intense text exchange with my West Coast college brother where I realized all the other things I could have ordered), I ate my weight in Korean BBQ with a couple of our good friends and remembered what really good boba is like, we drove down shiny Abbot Kinney and peeped into Gjusta, and for B2, we meandered into Torrance to find Sunnydale High.

Hi friends! Happy 2016! How are you faring and/or eating this week? I’ve been ping-ponging between something like I must consume the healthiest superfood in the world, my stomach is drowning in butter and please don’t make me go cold turkey, my stomach needs more butter. After a little of each (hi there, Sunday night’s delivery pizza), I think this oyakodon is, happily, somewhere in between — something to comfort my butter-addled belly but still good for it, too. Oyakodon is always what comes to mind when I think of healing comfort food. A custard-y chicken and egg rice bowl, it’s warm, gently simmered, soft and savory. I first had it in the depths of a Boston winter on a sniffly sick day; it was one of our favorite meals in Japan after a rainy morning. It’s a homey, simple back-to-basics meal that just makes you feel cozy and good after a marathon of holiday eating, and especially now that winter has finally landed in New York (and getting myself out the door in the morning is looking like this), I feel like it’s pretty much perfect for that hug-in-a-bowl, comforting-but-nourishing in-between.

It’s my dad’s birthday today! My brother and I are patting each other on the back because we enrolled him in a Beer of the Month club for his birthday this year and saved ourselves him from getting something like socks or his fourth Roger Federer cap. His two great loves are beer and tennis (well, and Chinese food), so part of me is wondering how we didn’t think of Beer of the Month before, but most of me is just super glad for the friends who enrolled B2 and me in Salsa of the Month for our wedding gift, because (1) it is totally awesome to get salsa on your doorstep and (2) I definitely nabbed that idea from them.

Oh man, it’s been not-enough-hours-in-the-day days around here lately. Most of the time it is safe to ignore me when I say that because I spend about half my waking hours huffing to B2 about the “million things I have to do” and then the other half of those hours on the couch doing zero of those things until it is too late to do them, but for once, it actually has been a little nonstop from one thing to the next. One of them is a very good one, though, and it’s that one of my good friends, source of indispensable life advice, and surrogate jie jie has been in town with her new (!) and awesome fiancé! They’ve been staying with us and I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m convinced that having house guests is one of my favorite ways to see friends. I get to feel like a real grown-up person when I put out “guest linens” and coffee accoutrements “in case you want to make some in the morning” (even if I have a couch instead of a guest bedroom and I forget to put out that cone that goes in the Hario so actually you cannot make some in the morning, oops), and it fits right in with my lazy-homebody agenda (see, e.g.,dinner parties) because when things get hectic for them or me, there’s still always time before bed to sit and chat in pajamas and eat cookies even though you already brushed your teeth.

I’m boring when it comes to leftovers. (Strategy: Remove from refrigerator and eat. Alternatively, freeze, forget about, then find three months later and still eat.) My mom, on the other hand, makes magic with them — I can’t remember a single time that she tossed out leftovers in our kitchen, or a time that we didn’t ask for the rest of our dinner to be packed up when we went out to eat. Instead, I can see her poised with an open clamshell container in one hand and a metal spatula in the other, mouth pursed, surveying her wok and trying to figure out how to upcycle last night’s takeout into inevitably more delicious fried rice, or stir-fried noodles, or a simmering pot of soup. Some of her recipes are ones where she even swears by leftovers, like her mapo tofu, which she won’t make unless she’s stir-fried giant prawns the day before and has the fiery-red broth left over. (Don’t tell her I gave away her secret ingredient.)

Every once in a blue moon, usually when we’re just about to fall asleep, B2 likes to come up with ideas for things I should cook next. I use “ideas” loosely, because it’s mostly a sleepy, intentionally goofy dialogue that consists of “what about …” followed by a long pause and things like “… homemade hot pockets!” (to be fair, that would be delicious) or “something with cheese” or “pumpkin toast.” (When I asked what pumpkin toast would be, like toasted pumpkin bread or toast with pumpkin on it or toasted pumpkin or what, his answer was, “You know. Pumpkin. Toast. Pumpkin toast.” And then he fell asleep. Two weeks later, I showed him this and he said, with glee, “See? It was a good idea!”)